A BigFoot™ Bag material containment system which provides a flexible layer established in a substantially planar configuration on a support surface for loading material which conforms by operation of a closure to provide an enclosed space to contain the loaded material.
Whether a material comprises valuable cargo being transported following the classic Mt. Everest expedition trail or comprises waste material being transported from the backyard to the local dump, containing and transporting the material poses a variety of problems familiar to the ordinary person.
One familiar problem related to containing and transporting material can be the difficulty of containing material amassed or accumulated on conventional tarpaulins or similar flexible sheets (“conventional tarpaulins”). Because conventional tarpaulins can be laid flat for efficient loading of material(s), a numerous and wide variety of devices and methods have been developed to gather or secure opposed portions of the tarpaulin periphery in an attempt to contain the material loaded. For example, cords, straps, or similar elements threaded through holes or grommets in the periphery or corners of the tarpaulin have been used to gather portions of the periphery of a tarpaulin as described for example by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,766,799, 3,024,824, and 5,943,831; alternately cords attached to the periphery or the corners of the tarpaulin can be tied together to gather portions of the periphery as described for example by U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 3,355,187, 4,519,183 and 6,267,504; and opposed parts of self-securing adhesive strips or hook and loop fabric fixed to the periphery of the tarpaulin can be joined as described for example by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,620,396 and 5,364,188 to gather portions of the tarpaulin periphery.
Similarly, numerous and varied devices and methods have been developed for moving conventional tarpaulins on which material has been amassed or accumulated which do not address closure of the periphery of the tarpaulin prior to movement as described for example by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,147,102; 5,529,321; 5,660,402; 6,565,101; 5,104,133; and 4,173,351.
As to each of these varied devices and methods of containing or transporting material on an open or within a gathered conventional tarpaulin, there is a common problem in that no attempt to close the tarpaulin has been made or only a portion of periphery of the tarpaulin has been drawn upon or joined to contain the material loaded. As such, a substantial portion of the periphery of the tarpaulin may remain open allowing material to egress from the tarpaulin or conversely may remain open allowing ingress of other material into the tarpaulin. In any event, none of these devices or methods of containing material on or within a tarpaulin address the need of closing substantially the entirety of the periphery of the tarpaulin to decrease the transfer of material(s).
Another familiar problem with the use of conventional tarpaulins or other conventional devices which initially lay flat for loading and then alter configuration by coupling or joining portions of the periphery can be that a plurality of discrete closures must be operated to generate the closed condition of the device. This approach is utilized for example by the devices described by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,254,578 and 3,073,367 each of which utilize four discrete zippers to generate the particular closed configuration. As such, these types of devices may be overly complex or incompatible with containing and transporting cargo or waste materials, or may not operate or may not be practical to operate to generate the closed configuration on the scale necessary to contain the amount of material generally amassed on the conventional tarpaulin.
Moreover, these and other conventional types of devices which have many discrete closures or even a single closure such as a zipper can be prone the egress and ingress of materials through the closure elements such as fine particulates and liquid. As can be understood by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,254,578 and 3,073,367, as examples, neither conventional device affords any protection against the transfer of material through the plurality of discrete zippers.
Another familiar problem with the use of conventional tarpaulins or other conventional devices which initially lay flat for loading can be that the closure operates to join portions of the periphery of a device to establish a substantially vertical container wall relative to the support surface. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,765 describes a conventional device which joins adjacent portions of the periphery of a square material by substantially vertical operation of the closure relative to the support surface.
In the case of a conventional tarpaulin where a substantial amount of material can be amassed or accumulated the person may have to bend over to operate the closure, a closure that operates vertically for more than a few inches relative to the support surface may require the person to move the entire body from the bent over position to the upright position to generate the closed condition of the container. Additionally, when a person is in the bent position the forces applied to the closure element may not be directed vertically, but rather the predominant direction of the force applied to the closure may be between the plane of the support surface and the vertical plane of the closure. As such, more overall force may have to be applied to the closure to generate the closed condition of the material container.
Another problem with conventional tarpaulins or other conventional devices which initially lay flat for loading can be a lack of means to substantially fix the location of the tarpaulin during closure operation. Again referring to U.S. Pat. No. 4,604,765, the force of operating the closure in the vertical direction may lift the device from the support surface. Again, in those instances in which the person may be using one hand to hold the portions of the periphery to be joined and one hand to operate the closure, movement of the material container can occur because there is not way to restrain it.
Overall conventional tarpaulins do not appear to disclose a device which lays flat in the open condition for amassing or accumulating materials thereon and provides an open configuration operably coordinated with the range of motion of a person bent over to commence operation of the closure. This lack of a posture coordinated planar configuration may be apparent with respect to the operating angle of the closure relative to angle of a person's body bent to commence operation of the closure, and also with respect to the location of grips and restraints relative to the location of the persons feet or hands in the bent over position, or both.
The instant material containment invention addresses each of these problems related to conventional tarpaulins and containment devices.